Who lives longest?

March 26, 2013

(Credit: World Life Expectancy)

Life expectancy is an average, and it fluctuates with age as the risks we face change throughout our lifetimes. Both those facts make it a frequently misunderstood statistic, The New York Times reports.

High infant-mortality rates depress the figure substantially. This can lead contemporary observers to the false conclusion that most humans died quite young, even in the not-so-distant past.

Before the Upper Paleolithic, early humans really did die young, most before their 30th birthdays. Then, during the late Stone Age, there was a significant increase in the number of people living into older adulthood.

Rachel Caspari, a paleoanthropologist at Central Michigan University, found that beginning around 30,000 years ago, during the Upper Paleolithic, there was a demographic shift : Caspari counted 20 old adults for every 10 young adults, coinciding with an explosion of cultural production

Currently, life expectancy at birth in the United States is roughly 79 years, and it’s the same at age 25, but our gains have slowed considerably.

The biggest barriers to improving life expectancy in the United States are societal issues, says Justin Denney, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University, such as growing up in a lead- and asbestos-contaminated row house or generations of chronic stress.

“Look at the countries with the highest average life expectancy,” says Denney, referring to places like Japan, Australia, Canada and, Sweden — nations that distribute their health resources more evenly. “Ultimately,” he says, “life expectancy is a measure of quality of life.”

Comments (54)

Live forever or die trying… Will be interesting to see what occurs once those individuals who have been adherents to Ray and Terry’s practices reach 100 or so. Should happen within about 5-10 years from now, assuming some switched-on 80 year olds took up the R&T life-extension routines 10 years ago. So by 2020 (7 years out), R&T will be vindicated or vilified. Me, I’m 56, am a sort-of adherent to their ideas re supplementation, basic water, and exercise. I golf, I ski, I watch my weight. I’ll be disappointed if don’t see a healthy 85, and if I see a healthy 85, I don’t expect to grow to be any older physically speaking than about 76. And we all know what happens the day after the day you achieve age equilibrium… Hope my golf scores follow the same trend.

Improved health care and reduced risk to accidents can increase life expectancy but it does little for increasing life span. You wiil still die before you reach 130 year old. Research in extending life span is need if you want to live more then 200 years.

Jeanne Calment looks like an anomaly, the oldest person alive currently, almost 2 decades after Calment’s death, is still only 115 and nobody excepted Calment has been “certified” for 120+ years of existence.

Actually with the obesity pandemic and the ever more insidious pollutants (even in mineral water), I’m expecting, barring true breakthroughs, a regression of average life expectancy.

Much hype about human life extension, NULL RESULTS SO FAR on super centenarians!!!

But I’m looking forward with interest when/if billionaire centenarians start to be over represented vs your average centenarian dude, LOL

I’d rather adopt a proactive stance with regards to my healthcare, the ‘bridge to a bridge’ approach, living long enough to live forever (long enough for medical advances to fix what ails you, or fails you). Aubrey de Grey thinks the first person to live to 1,000 years old may have been born. Personally, I suspect the first immortal may already be among us.

The editing feature needs a little refinement – there’s a time limit which seems to be based upon your initial post (not suited for those of us just getting back from the pub – err, or otherwise distracted :-)

In the future, cyborgization can cause the subjective time-flow (of the outside world) to slow down (I omit the even more radical “upload” part because that would be incomprehensible for us 2013ers). Thus, your subjective lifespan increases.
To me, that is good enough.

That is why looking at average additional years at ages 50, 65, and 85 is a much better measure. For example in the USA in 1900 the average 65 year old lived 12 more years and in 2000 that had increased to 18 more years. Lookining at the average 85 year old in 1900 we see a 4 additional years and in 2000 it has increased to 6 more years. These numbers should go up as medicine and medical technique is enhanced with technology.

I think this article brings up a good point that Average Life expectancy is greatly dependent on making sure your infant mortality rates are very low. You can imagine how fast it kills your average when children who die at age 1 or less bring down your totals. I think we should be talking more about max lifespan numbers and how to improve this number. It is interesting we really don’t see any more people living to 120 or beyond for example, even with our amazing medical advances in the last 20 years. Yes are getting better at saving your life after a bad car accident or even better at saving your life at age 50 or 60 from dying early of cancers or diabetes effects, or other, but we have done almost nothing so far to get anyone (ever) to live to 130 or beyond. It is interesting that the life of most animals is so short, with the rare exception of turtles, whales and maybe a blind mole or other odd creatures that have low oxygen or cold environments, but in our modern day world of energy drinks and ADD fueled drugs for our kids to be normal we seem to be on a path of burning the candle at both ends before we consider ever slowing down. I am sure there are some quality of life issues that allow countries like Japan to have long life spans, but you have to look at their diet and other areas I think a lot closer. Clearly we are not designed to live 150 years on our own, so it will be the understanding of our own DNA code and playing computer programmer or God with learning how to reset internal clocks or regrow organs or parts that burn out along the way. Lets hope some billionaires get together to do more than gather money for avatars and put some research towards medical cures for old age. It still amazes me that the basic code of animal life was not designed to live to 200+ years or so, just as a design concept to pass on your genes or populate the planet…. there must be a great/complicated reason as to why that is true…. anyhow a nod to a Ted talk here on the subject http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html

“τὸ μὲν σῶμά ἐστιν ἡμῖν σῆμα” (Our body is our grave). This well known Platonic quote fits very well a favorite of mine, Weissman’s theory that the body is here just to protect the germ line, the time mandatory for its successful reproduction.

We are utmost interested at the preservation of the body but actually, after successful reproduction, indeed the body starts to be redundant.

Totally agree.
HOWEVER, for the 1st time since humans stepped on earth we will have the ability to transcend nature’s limitations either thru biological or nano-technological modifications.
Which doesn’t necessarily make your 2nd statement redundant but it changes the nature of it execution, such that the parent no longer needs to die.

No, I’m incapable of reading less than thoroughly, perhaps you stopped watching Kurzweil’s appearances too soon. There’s a nuance alright, of course he leaves it ambiguous trying to protect said argument, but the simple suggestion is bad enough. That lifetimes would be magically increasing steadily instead of simply asymptotically approaching its set maximum.

@Chimera
Kurzweil never actually argued that, though.
I’ve read his works several times, and I always got the impression that the point he was trying to make was that more and more of the population got/gets closer to reaching the maximum potential age of their bodies due to advances in healthcare, hygiene and so forth. Those are technological advances.

A completely new series of advances would be necessary to actually extend maximum lifespan. These could be considered to be a paradigm shift, from merely taking care of the ‘inherited body’ to actually modifying it to get more out of it. That would fit in nicely with his recurring theme of the Law of Accelerating Returns, and fits the data provided (and predicted).

Yes. This should be the correct interpretation. However, as I said, the mere suggestion / innuendo / subtlety / ambiguity is bad enough as it is completely misleading. In fact, sometimes it’s so overt it appears to be purposeful.

I believe Kurzweil’s aggressive “pill-diet” (involving taking 100s of pills daily) started too late. If he started younger, the effect would be much stronger. I will personally experiment with my own “pill-diet” soon.

What destroys the U.S. health care system is all of the greed and selfishness that is part of our raw capitalist system which devours people as objects to be used for profit. Little compassion for the other person. (and they consider us a “christian” nation) What a joke on everyone.

Places like Canada, Sweden, Australia an Japan are free countries. As a Canadian living in a country that shares its resources so that all The citizens have access to health care without the concern of what it will cost does not infringe on my freedom. So to suggest that you loss freedom when you introduce universal health care is specious at best.

Side note: this is not to say ave medical system is superior as I am well aware that it has it flaws but no one should ever be denied health care

but we are denied health care in Canada. The wait times for several services are ridiculous, depending on where you live.
If you don’t allow me to open my own health care practice and determine who I will treat and how much I will charge for my services, you are denying my freedom.

Editor. Would you please check and see if “Satan” is really logging on to this site from Canada. I doubt it. I predict he is from one of the red states of the United States (or perhaps one of the red counties).

I assume that you buy into the lie that “we have the best health care system in the wortld” (at least, until Harper was elected?). Try and find a GP – my town (of 25,000 people, within sight of Toronto) would need 10 additional family practices to eliminate that waiting list. Without a GP, you can kill off half a day at a first come first serve walk in clinic.

and you know, it is sad how many Americans have devolved into red state blue state. and now counties? how about city blocks or floors in apartment buildings? I swear you country is heading towards another civil war.

Anyone who makes red -blue comments can be dismissed as a malfunctioning unit. They are useful idiots to political ideology and should be ashamed that they have fallen so far.

Satan why must you be so harsh?… Oh, now I remember you are Satan. I still think you’re an American posing as a Canadian who does not like socialized medicine. If so many Canadians did not like their system they would have changed it. In the U.S., so many of us are unhappy with our “system” so we are in the process of changing it. This is what democracies do.

Who said so many Canadians are unhappy with the system? Here’s a survey from 2010:
44% of Canadians rate health care in Canada as excellent
one in nine of those surveyed thought the system was poor or very poor

ahhh,….you are Canadian posing as an American. Funny guy. My family all live down there, they know the truth about our system and warn their neighbours. I’m pretty sure the system they are proposing isn’t like ours anyways from what I have read.

Editor – you have my permission to reveal my location for this and all of my previous posts. I am an American, writing from California. I wish we (Americans) had universal health care like the rest of the industrialized nations of the world – soon we will!

While these statistics may be interesting to read about, longevity is a very personal experience. How much of your personal life expectancy would you give up to help strangers live longer? Public policy should ensure that any improvments in these general statistics do not come with mandatory expense of anyone’s personal longevity.

Also, places low on the list apportion health resources evenly just like places high on the list. There are just less total available – like every other scarce resource in these impoverished communities.

“If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.”
/ Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The securest place is a prison cell, but there is no liberty”
/ Benjamin Franklin

I’m very much concerned that the article implies such a direct connection between “quality of life” and “even distribution of resources.” That is socialism. By definition it restricts individual freedoms. As our friends Eisenhower and Franklin wisely points out; would you rather live long in prison than short in freedom!?

*Nothing* is more important for humanity than freedom in the long run!

(NB. I’m from Sweden, I DON’T claim it’s a literal prison. life is generally good..)

Why? I use an “extreme”, but certainly logical, example that shows the point. I then add a kindof disclaimer to try to avoid people attacking an analogy or extrapolation instead of contemplating the real issue.

Hi Fredrik, I’m curious – are you concerned about the increasing levels of inequality that seem to afflict “free” countries such as the US ? It seems to me that as automation increases and displaces more and more average workers, the situation is likely to get much worse – imagine 50%+ of the population unable to find work, with fantastic gains in wealth accruing to a tiny elite. Ultimately this could be catastrophic for our society. Do you think this is a realistic scenario, and is there a point when redistribution becomes desirable or necessary ?

Any “redistribution” should be voluntary and not mandated by the government. The idea that socialism is more compassionate is a myth. A truly compassionate person would personally help the poor or at least give to a worthy charity rather than give the money over to the government to be mismanaged and wasted with only a small fraction going to those who need help. I’m Canadian, and I agree with PAul. The healthcare system is grossly bureaucratized and mismanaged. In Ontario, out tax dollars are wated by LHINs – massive health care oversight committees.
Regarding the future scenario where less people can find work and government “redistributes” – look at North Korea. The people there are in such a system. The government takes property and food away from anyone who does not agree with them and gives it to those who support the government. Now imagine that scenario going worldwide. Imagine a global statist system where wealth is “redistributed” from the dissenters to party faithful. It could happen within a matter of a few decades.

Redefining meaning of words is a big problem. Socialists are experts here. You don’t even have to use Soviet-wording as bad examples. In _current_ debates in Sweden for example, we have politicians trying to define freedom as “freedom to NOT have to chose”, or “freedom to not have to care” (similar to how the left constantly try to mix positive vs negative rights..). Very scary.

Similarly we are continuously advised to “save” the planet. I always want to know “save” from what and “save” for who.. I personally thank those in the past who have innovated so that we may have the abundance and lifestyle we enjoy today. Creativity is a far greater virtue than simply “saving”

The socialistic solution in all of the “good” countries above is to use taxation. Taxation by the state is by _law_, acquired via force if necessary. I.e you go to _jail_ if you refuse to give up a certain share of your personal work.
Also from the other perspective; A person that receives “gifts” from the state in its pursuit to even the wealth becomes dependent on the system, the state, and thus partially loses freedom. The new Incitements can strongly affect your life.

A capitalistic society needs roads and railway lines/ports to transport goods……their construction is paid for by taxes.

A capitalistic society needs people to earn to buy their goods whose earning is dependent on their skills which are acquired in trade schools and colleges…..their construction and maintainence is paid for by taxes.

A capitalistic society needs radio, television and newspapers to advertise. The development of all technologies underlying these are funded by government generally……paid for by taxes.

A capitalistic society needs a strong police force to maintain law and order, so that it can run its businesses in peace…..paid for by taxes.

Take taxes out of the equation and any capitalistic society will struggle. Which means taxes are an integral part of capitalistic society as much as they are of a socialistic society.

restricting “freedom” is what organized societies/cultures do! A society whose power structure , however, that is created/maintained, that values “even distribution of resources” as a desirable state will structure and define freedoms to move towards that state. But transitions take time and other “values” compete for societies attentions

I should prefer to an ordinary death, being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira, until that time,
then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country! But in all probability, we live in a century
too little advanced, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 1773